Krishna River

“ He then leaves the river, but the exhaustion of the cowherds and cowgirls is so great that they decide to stay in the forest for the night and return to Brindaban next morning. Their trials, however, are far from over. At midnight there is a heavy storm and a huge conflagration. Scarlet flames leap up, dense smoke engulfs the forest and many cattle are burnt alive. Finding themselves in great danger, Nanda, Yasoda and the cowherds call on Krishna to save them. Krishna quietly rises up, sucks the fire into his mouth and ends the blaze. ”

“ The present picture with its glamorous interpretation of the forest in spring illustrates the poem's opening verse and re-creates the setting in terms of which the drama will proceed. Nanda, the tall figure towering above the cowherd children, is commanding Radha to take Krishna home. The evening sky is dark with clouds, the wind has risen and already the flower-studded branches are swaying and bending in the breeze. Krishna is still a young boy and Radha a girl a few years older. As Radha takes him home, they loiter by the river, passion suddenly flares and they fall into each other's arms. ”

“ KrishnaAnother story of the boy Krishna is represented in his dance on the head of a serpent named Kāliya (the black) . Kāliya was hiding in a pond in the Yamunā river and making the whole neighbourhood poisonous to all living beings. One day the cattle tended by Krishna and his companions strayed into this region and were thereby poisoned. Krishna then plunged into the pond and holding the viper by the tail ”

“ How if he would turn the common earth to beauty by breathing the air we breathe?
“And because it is so desired, it is done and Krishna is born, the Herdsman of Brindaban, the Beloved of India.”
So reading day by day, he instructed her in the lovely story of the Childhood, and, with the ancient Pastoral, took her to the forests and rich cattle pastures where Jumna River flows wide and still to the sea. The people are kind and simple, the sacred cows are driven out at dawn to feed, and brought back in the brief glow of evening by the fair women who tend the gentle beasts ”

“ Faced with this situation, the cowgirls discuss how best to gain Krishna as their lover. They recall that bathing in the early winter is believed to wipe out sin and fulfil the heart's desires. They accordingly go to the river Jumna, bathe in its waters and after making clay images of Parvati, Siva's consort, pray to her to make Krishna theirs. They go on doing this for many days.
One day they choose a part of the river where there is a steep bank. Taking off their clothes they leave them on the grass verge, enter the water and swim around calling out their love for Krishna. ”

“ Kâliya left the Yamunâ with his wives and the water of that river has been pure ever since.
The people of Vrindâvana embraced Krishna and shed tears of joy. They were all so much put out that they stopped that night on the river bank. At midnight, a fire broke out from a castor plantation and it surrounded the people on all sides. The Gopas and Gopis cried out: "O Krishna, O Râma, we are yours. Krishna! Save us from this fire. We are not afraid of our lives, but it will pain us to part from Thy feet."
Krishna ate up the whole fire.
PRALAMBA. SKANDHA X. CHAP. 18. ”

“ The present picture shows Krishna and a girl standing by an inlet of the River Jumna. The girl is later to be identified as Radha but in the Bhagavata Purana she is merely referred to as one who has been particularly favoured, her actual name being suppressed. The moment is some time after they have left the circular dance and before their sudden separation. Krishna, whose hand rests on the girl's shoulder, is urging her forward but the girl is weary and begs him to carry her. ”

“ Over the shingle they stream and down on to the hard wet sand. Some one digs a hole; another produces a black cock; and Rama with a knife cuts its throat over the hole, imploring the spirit's departure, at the very moment that Krishna with a final shriek plunges into the sea. They follow him, carry him out of danger, and lay him, stark and speechless, upon the margin of the waves.
Thence, after a pause and a final prayer, they bear him homeward, as men bear a corpse, nor leave him until he has regained consciousness and his very self. ”

“ His fame as a stealer of hearts has preceded him and the cowherds have only to mention his name for the wives of the Brahmans to run to serve him. They bring out gold dishes, load them with food, brush their husbands aside and hurry to the forest. One husband stops his wife, but rather than be left behind the woman leaves her body and reaches Krishna before the others. When the women arrive they marvel at Krishna's beauty. 'He is Nanda's son,' they say. ”

“ As they arrive, Krishna stands superbly before them. He wears a crown of peacocks' feathers and a yellow dhoti and his blue-black skin shines in the moonlight. As the cowgirls throng to see him, he twits them on their conduct. Are they not frightened at coming into the dark forest? What are they doing abandoning their families? Is not such wild behaviour quite unbefitting married girls? Should not a married girl obey her husband in all things and never for a moment leave him? Having enjoyed the deep forest and the moonlight, let them return at once and soothe their injured spouses. ”

“ In the morn of summer, early, even before the sun yet bathed the world with its golden warmth, the companions of Krishna, aroused from their slumber by the lowing of the cows, would gather about the house of Nanda and wait for Krishna to come from His bed and go with them to the forest to tend the cows and while away the sweet hours of long summer days with sporting and tales and long rambles together. ”

“ He takes them to a cave and when Krishna goes in search of them, hides the cowherd children as well. Krishna, however, is not to be deterred. Creating duplicates of every calf and boy he brings them home. No one detects that anything is wrong and for a year they live as if nothing has happened. Brahma has meanwhile sunk himself in meditation, but suddenly recalls his prank and hurries out to set matters right. He is astonished to find the original calves and children still sleeping in the cave, while their counterparts roam the forest. ”

“ The hundred sons of their rival, the blind king Dhritarashtra, are dead and with a sense of tragic futility, the epic ends.
It is as an actor in this tangled drama that Krishna appears. Alongside the Pandavas and the Kauravas in Northern India is a powerful people, the Yadavas. They live by grazing cattle but possess towns including a capital, the city of Dwarka in Western India. At this capital resides their ruler or king and with him is a powerful prince, Krishna. This Krishna is related to the rival families, for his father, Vasudeva, is brother of Kunti, the Pandavas' mother. ”

“ Another day Krishna is out in the forest with the cowherds and the calves, when a snake demon, Ugrasura, sucks them into its mouth. Krishna expands his body to such an extent that the snake bursts. The calves and cowherd children come tumbling out and all praise Krishna for saving them. On the way back, Krishna suggests that they should have a picnic and choosing a great kadam tree, they sweep the place clean, set out their food and proceed to enjoy it. As they eat, the gods look down, noting how handsome the young Krishna has grown. ”

“ Trees are heavy with blossom, peacocks strut in the glades and a general lethargy seizes the cowherds. One day Krishna and his friends are out with the cattle when Pralamba, a demon in human form, comes to join them. ”

“ The Ahīrs make a mound of earth, which is called Govardhan, that is the mountain in Mathura which Krishna held upside down on his finger for seven days and nights, so that all the people might gather under it and be protected from the devastating storms of rain sent by Indra. After dancing round the mound they drive their cattle over it and make them trample it to pieces. ”

“ But the souls that have attained to perfection never come down again.—Jain Precept.
OM!
225
No. 8.
Sri Krishna is the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings; his unthinkable glory irradiates all that is manifest and all that is unmanifest. This infinite universe, its life and its beauty, and its joy, rest but on his foot, from which flows the sacred stream of the Ganges, whose mortal aspect alone is known on this earth. Krishna reveals his infinity of attributes to his beloved worshipper, and yet he is devoid of attributes. ”

“ Such groups of paintings are, at most, exquisite exceptions and it is rather in the Rajput states of the Punjab Hills—an area remote and quite distinct from Rajasthan—that the theme of Krishna the divine lover received its most enraptured expression in the eighteenth century. ”

“ Although all of them are married, the cowgirls find his presence irresistible and despite the warnings of morality and the existence of their husbands, each falls utterly in love with him. As Krishna wanders in the forest, the cowgirls can talk of nothing but his charms. They do their work but their thoughts are on him. They stay at home but all the time each is filled with desperate longing. One day Krishna plays on his flute in the forest. Playing the flute is the cowherds' special art and Krishna has, therefore, learnt it in his childhood. ”

“ It is rather that in painting these pictures, he has treated Krishna as a symbol of rural vitality, a figure whose boisterous career among the cowherds is an exact reflection of his own attitudes and enthusiasms. To Jamini Roy, the Bengali village with its sense of rude health is infinitely to be preferred to a city such as Calcutta with its artificiality and disease and in a style of bold simplifications, he has constantly celebrated the natural vigour and inherent dignity of simple unsophisticated men. ”

“ It is said that, as fast as the monkeys built up the dike, Bãvan destroyed it; so, to prevent his doing this, Bãma erected a temple to Shiva (the god adored by Bavan) at the extremity of the dike. Thenceforth Setband Rãmeshwar became a place of pilgrimage. *** This allusion to the exploits of Krishna the curious reader will find fully explained in the 26th chapter of the “Prem Sãgar.”
“On hearing these words of the Brahman’s, the king began thinking to himself, ‘How shall I take charge of a very beautiful young woman? ”

“ The style founded by him influenced members of his own family, including his nephew Kushala and ultimately spread to Kangra and Garhwal where it reached its greatest heights. The present picture, together with Plates 5, 6, 8, 9, 11 and 16, is possibly by the Kangra artist Purkhu and with others of the series illustrates perhaps the greatest interpretation of the Bhagavata Purana ever produced in Indian painting.
In the picture, the tyrant ruler Kansa is sleeping on a bed as a courtier prepares to break the fateful news of Krishna's birth. ”

“ It is mentioned by Pliny, the Latin historian, Ptolemy, the Egyptian geographer, and other writers previous to the Christian era, and is associated with the earliest Aryan migrations. Here Krishna, the divine herdsman, was born. He spent his childhood tending cattle in the village of Gokul, where are the ruins of several ancient temples erected in his honor, but, although he seems to have retained his hold upon the people, they have allowed them to crumble, and the profuse adornments of the walls and columns have been shamefully defaced. ”

“ SARGA THE FIRST. SAMODADAMODARO. THE SPORTS OF KRISHNA.
Beautiful Radha, jasmine-bosomed Radha,
All in the Spring-time waited by the wood
For Krishna fair, Krishna the all-forgetful,—
Krishna with earthly love's false fire consuming—
And some one of her maidens sang this song:—
(What follows is to the Music Vasanta and the Mode Yati.)
I know where Krishna tarries in these early days of Spring,
When every wind from warm Malay brings fragrance on its wing;
[10] Brings fragrance stolen far away from thickets of the clove,
In jungles where the bees hum and the Koil flutes her love ”

“ The young God’s eyes sparkled.
“Am I not the first of the Gods in their mouths to-day?” returned Bhairon, unabashed. “For the sake of the Common People I said—very many wise things which I have now forgotten, but this my staff-”
Krishna turned impatiently, saw the Mugger at his feet, and kneeling, slipped an arm round the cold neck. “Mother,” he said gently, “get thee to thy flood again. The matter is not for thee. What harm shall thy honour take of this live dirt? Thou hast given them their fields new year after year, and by thy flood they are made strong. ”

“ An idyllic phase in Krishna's life now starts. 'At this time Krishna and Balarama, accompanied by the cow-boys, traversed the forests, that echoed with the hum of bees and the peacock's cry. Sometimes they sang in chorus or danced together; sometimes they sought shelter from the cold beneath the trees; sometimes they decorated themselves with flowery garlands, sometimes with peacocks' feathers; sometimes they stained themselves of various hues with the minerals of the mountain; sometimes weary they reposed on beds of leaves, and sometimes imitated in mirth the muttering of the thundercloud ”

“ The Supreme Lord sanctifies the soil of the earth-plane of every universe with the all-purifying touch of His Lotus-Feet by turns. The countless universes that spring out of Him and return in germ-form again into Him have the grace of His personal touch and supervision at appointed times. When Krishna comes to live in any of the universes, Nature therein is turned inside out, so that the inmost essence of it may flow over its surface and wash off all the causes of pollution. ”